That was why he was so good at science when I wasn’t.
All he had to do was see the teacher write it onto the board, or read it in the text, and he’d know it—forever.
Me? Not so much. I’d have to study for hours to accomplish the same thing. And I’d forget it all by the next period.
Banks walked up to the front of the room and solved the problem. Though, solving it would be the wrong word. More like he wrote it down, number for number, line by line, like I’d solved it yesterday.
He even added the little curlicue to the seven that I had.
Though, that was for my benefit, I could tell, and not anybody else’s.
When he was done he walked back to his seat and kept his eyes directly on me the entire way.
The expression on his face was one that I couldn’t quite distinguish.
Gratefulness?
But it was gone half a second later, and he sneered.
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.
I didn’t let the hot boy see me cringe.
No. Nope. Nuh-uh.
Chapter 3
I’m too busy fighting my own immune system to be dealing with your immature ass.
-Candy to Banks
Candy
“I’ll bet you fifty bucks that he’ll say yes,” Mack Culpepper said to me.
Mack and I were friends.
Not best friends, and not even good friends.
More like acquaintances.
Outcasts. Like attracted to like.
We sat at the same lunch table and ate lunch together when the weather didn’t permit us to be outside—which was where we both preferred.
“I’m not asking him.” I shook my head.
“I bet he’d say yes,” he repeated.
“He wouldn’t,” I promised.
“It would be the best revenge ever,” Mack pushed.
It would.
It so would.
I could ask him to be my date, then he’d be forced to dance with me. Banks, the most popular boy in school, if he said yes, would be subjected to dancing with me—Candy Ray Sunshine. The resident goth girl who nobody liked.
That was when I narrowed my eyes.
Banks was sitting in the middle of the cafeteria. He had all his football buddies, and his twin Callum, sitting next to him.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go do it.”
I stood up.
“Now?” Mack squeaked. “You’re going to do it now in front of all of his friends?”
I shrugged.
What did it matter when I did it?
I marched right up to Banks, stared him in the eye, and said, “Will you go to the dance with me?”
I never in a million years expected him to say yes.
But he did.
Chapter 4
Having thick thighs means you can hold more puppies in your lap. Who’s winning now?
-Candy to Banks
Candy
I got dressed up.
I had my dad drop me off at the school after making sure that everything was just so.
I walked inside of the gymnasium where the dance was being held, my hair a long, slick sheet of black straight down my back, swishing with each step that I took.
And my eyes found him.
He was standing next to the punch bowl with a cup in his hand.
He had a white cowboy hat on his head, and he had a blue starched chambray shirt tucked into skin-tight dark-washed Wrangler jeans. He was even wearing his good boots. Not the ones that he wore to school with cow shit on them, but the ones that he wore to church on Sundays when he attended with his mother.
I smiled and started walking toward him.
Which was when Casey Danae walked up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.
I didn’t let Casey’s actions deter me, though.
Banks was my date to this dance.
I’d asked him.
He’d said yes in front of the whole school.
Casey knew that he was my date.
Even if they’d been dating on and off again for the last year.
I walked slowly, carefully since I was unused to the heels that I was wearing, toward where Banks was standing with his friends.
And when I arrived, all eyes turned to me.
Casey’s arms didn’t drop from around Banks’ neck, and I had a surge of anger roll through me at the look in her eyes. The look of amusement. Of disgust.
“What are you doing here, Goth Girl?”
“Candy,” I said for the hundredth time. “My name is Candy.”
“Whatever.” She waved me off. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to the dance,” I paused for effect. “You’re currently hanging off of my date.”
All eyes turned to Banks, who hadn’t said a word.
Hell, he didn’t even move a muscle as he stared.
“You do realize, right, that he was just playing?” she said. “Everyone at school knew it was a joke. Why would he ever say yes to you? You had to realize that it was a joke.”
That was when it hit me.
He’d said yes.
But he hadn’t meant it.
He’d said yes, but only because he wanted to do this exact thing to me.
I stiffened my spine and refused to cry. Refused to show them even the slightest bit of anger or sadness.
“Well, that’s too bad,” I said softly.
My eyes met those of Callum, Casey, and then Banks.
Nobody said a word after that, so I took that as my cue to leave.
I turned on my heel and saw my dress swish at my feet.
The dress that’d made me feel so beautiful earlier—the dress that wasn’t black, but a deep plum—made me feel hideous now.
There was a reason that I dressed in black and tried to stay out of the limelight. Life worked better when people didn’t notice me.
It was when people noticed me that things went bad.
Kind of like right now.
I should’ve stayed in the main room. Should’ve ignored the whispers and the laughing and stayed and enjoyed myself. Maybe found Mack to tell him all about what Banks had done.
Should’ve… but didn’t.
I decided to go find a bathroom so nobody could see me cry.
And, instead of finding the bathroom, I found a very drunk, very handsy Thom Green. Thom Green who had no problems giving me shit and bothering the absolute hell out of me whenever he felt the need arise.
Usually, I had my armor on, though. The makeup. The jeans. The dark clothes that made me seem more unappealing.
But today I was dressed pretty—for Banks.
Today, I wasn’t in that armor.
Today, Thom Green saw me.
Today, Thom Green ruined my life.
“Well, hello there, Goth Reject.”
***
It was only after everything was all said and done that it finally made sense in my head.
I was nothing.
I’d spent the last four years of my life living in some fucked up world, and I really didn’t want to live in it any longer.
Not after tonight.
Not after what had just happened.
With shaky legs, I stood up on my broken heels and started for the gymnasium’s door.
I pushed it open, uncaring of what I would find on the other side.
I’d already experienced the worst that could ever happen to a woman tonight.
What did it matter now?
I was a zombie as I walked across the parking lot toward the crosswalk that would lead me home.
I only lived five blocks from the school. That was an eight-minute walk.
“Candy?”
I looked over, completely out of it, to find that I’d walked right up to where Banks and his brother were leaning against the tailgate of their bigger brother’s truck.
&nb
sp; I blinked.
Ignored him.
And kept walking.
“Candy, wait up,” Banks said as he rushed to me.
If it’d been any other person, I would’ve been scared.
I would’ve been scared out of my mind after what had just happened.
But this was Banks.
For all his assholeness, he wouldn’t hurt a woman.
More so, if he’d realized what had just happened in that gym with his friend, he would’ve gone in there and kicked the kid’s ass.
But nobody would find out.
Because it didn’t matter.
Not anymore.
“I said wait,” Banks said, putting his hand on my arm. “What’s wrong with you? Why do you look like someone just beat the shit out of you?”
Because they had.
I didn’t answer, though.
Couldn’t.
“Can I give you a ride?” he asked.
No.
No, he could not.
Mostly because if I sat down, I wouldn’t make it home.
I was determined.
I pulled my arm away from Banks and continued walking.
I was halfway down the street that would lead to my house before Banks caught up to me in the truck.
He followed me all the way home.
Then he walked with me up to my door.
“Listen, Candy,” he said. “About tonight…”
I looked at him and let him see all the horror of the night. All the pain. All the grief. All the embarrassment.
Everything.
He flinched.
“I didn’t ask her to come to the dance with me,” he said. “She didn’t ask me either.”
It didn’t matter anymore.
I was over that.
“Have a good life, Banks Valentine.”
With that I walked up to my room, waved at my father in his recliner, and didn’t stop until I was standing in front of my bathroom vanity with a bottle of my mom’s sleeping pills.
Then I did what I had to do to forget. To feel peace for the first time in a long time.
Chapter 5
If I were to give up sarcasm, that would leave interpretive dance as my only means of communication.
-Banks to Callum
Banks
I felt the bullet as it burned through my abdomen. Watched as my father killed my younger two siblings, then watched some more as he shot my mother, poured gasoline over the living room floor and then lit it on fire. Then, moments after lighting the fire, he turned the gun on himself.
I watched as the contents of his head—brain matter, bits of brain, pieces of his skull, blood—all of it splattered onto the wall behind him. Then, like a limp sack of grain, he hit the floor.
“Nooooo!!!!!!”
“You’re going to be all right, son,” I heard said at my bedside.
I blinked open my eyes and looked over to see someone I recognized.
I wasn’t sure why I recognized him, but he was nice, so I smiled.
“Thanks,” I rasped.
My voice hurt from screaming.
The nightmare of the night before just wouldn’t go away.
Even worse, I was in the hospital away from all of my family.
All of us had separate rooms.
“You need anything?” the man asked.
I swallowed hard and opened my eyes. “Umm,” I hesitated. “Who are you?”
The man smiled.
His smile was kind.
Not something I was used to seeing from an adult lately.
“I’m Candy Ray Sunshine’s dad. My name is Orlen,” he said. “Candy heard that you were over here from her nurse and wanted me to come check on you.”
I gave a half-hearted thumbs up.
Everything hurt.
My head. My wrists. My brain.
My sinuses. My lungs.
Every time I took a breath in, fire shot down my throat into my lungs. Then the deep breath penetrated the muscles that’d been stitched back together by the surgeons after removing the bullet from my gut.
Then what he said penetrated my brain.
“What?” I blinked my eyes open again. “What do you mean her nurse?”
“After you dropped her off from the dance.” He inhaled deeply, sorrow filling his eyes. “She went up to her room and tried to kill herself.”
Everything inside of me just… died.
Part II
Chapter 6
Why is the recommended age for a Ouija board 8+ but you have to be 21 to buy alcohol? So you can summon the devil at 8, but not drink?
-Candy to Banks
Candy
I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man swaggering up my driveway wasn’t Callum Valentine.
Why did I know that?
Because I was into sadism, maybe?
Though, really, it was due in part to the fact that I knew Banks.
I knew him so well that I could pick his walk out in a crowd. I could see the back of his freakin’ hand, see the scars on his knuckles, and know it was him.
Hell, even in the time that it’d been since I’d seen him so long ago in our high school parking lot, he’d acquired new scars. New nuances. New everything.
Yet, I still knew it was him.
It was possible that it was just the way that my body felt when his was around.
Who the hell knows? Stop trying to figure out something that isn’t explainable, Candy.
Banks didn’t look up from his swaggering walk up my driveway. Instead, head down with the large brim of his cowboy hat shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun, he watched his feet as he moved.
My donkey, Fern, was walking along nicely beside him until he looked up and spotted me.
The moment that he saw me standing in the middle of the driveway, he came to a complete stop and refused to budge.
Banks halted just as suddenly, turning his back to me and giving Fern an experimental tug.
That was when I heard him talking to my donkey.
A low, soothing bass that made my heart clench and my insides tingle.
“Hot damn,” Mack said. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I glared at the back of Banks’ head and wondered if I would get caught if I just hauled back and slapped him on that fat noggin of his.
“What are you thinking?” I heard whispered from my best friend beside me.
Mack, my best friend since that fateful day when my life had changed, knew me better than I sometimes knew myself.
“I was wondering if I could get away with shooting him and burying him on my property,” I admitted as Banks finally got the donkey moving and once again started up the drive toward me.
It was another thirty seconds later before Banks finally looked up and acknowledged me standing there.
“You can’t,” Banks said as he made his way toward me. His hand was wrapped loosely around my donkey’s bridle.
I blinked. There was no way on earth the man had heard me.
“You can’t, what?” I hedged.
“You can’t shoot me and then bury me somewhere on your property and get away with it,” he repeated. “And no, I didn’t hear you, but you have a very expressive face.”
Mack snorted with laughter.
That was something he said to me quite a bit.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve told her that before. She doesn’t listen very well. You should see her trying to play poker.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward.
I crossed my arms and looked at the two men.
“What can I help you with?” I asked cautiously.
Banks tugged on Fern’s bridle.
“Your donkey keeps making its way to my land,” he said.
I gritted my teeth.
“Fern is an escape artist,” I said stiffly.
“You should probably pen her ass up before she gets hit,
” he suggested.
I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed. “I’ve done everything short of tying her to a fence post. I don’t know what to do with her anymore.”
“You have a sound fence?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Would you like to go check it out and confirm it for yourself?”
This was the fourth time she’d gotten out, and the fourth time that she’d made her way to the Valentine land.
Look at me being all nice and shit.
I should get an award or something.
I mean, it wasn’t every day that I managed to control my temper when it came to Banks Valentine.
I’m sure that it’d only take a few minutes with him for that to become a long ago memory, but for the time being, I could play nice.
“Sure,” Banks said. “I’d like to see it. Have you checked the entire fence?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “I’ve even walked it several times. I lock the gate even with a padlock. There’s literally no way for her to be getting out but by jumping the fence itself… which I don’t think she’s doing. Yet, every time she’s out, I always find a new way that she’s gotten out. It’s getting frustrating.”
I didn’t know why I was telling him all of this. Most likely it was due to the fact that I didn’t want his judgment.
I knew that he was silently judging me, though.
I also knew that he thought I was an inept animal owner.
But seriously, I couldn’t help it.
I’d literally done everything correctly.
And I wanted him to see that.
“Have you ever closed the gate in front of her?” he asked curiously.
I thought about that for a moment as I led Fern back to her pen and then shrugged. “I suppose. I mean, she’s probably watched me put her into her pen quite a few times. Because the fucker always gets out.”
Banks made a humming sound, and I was about to tell him that it didn’t matter if she’d seen me close the gate or not because I had a lock, when he came to a sudden halt.
“You have fainting goats.”
I did.
What did that matter?
“Fainting goats used to be my mother’s favorite,” he murmured softly and picked up his walking once again.
I felt something in the pit of my stomach sink, but I wouldn’t be allowing myself to have any sympathy for the man—even if he did deserve it.
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